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Saturday, January 17, 2009

This Good APD Cop Deserves a Conclusive Autopsy

By Diane Dimond

          The voice on the other line was familiar, but I'd never heard him sound quite like this.
        It was Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White calling me. Darren is a personable guy, so we spent a few minutes exchanging pleasantries and asking about each other's families and holidays. But I sensed he had another reason for calling.
        Our conversation soon turned serious.
        White told me about a friend of his named Todd Parkins, a top cop at the Albuquerque Police Department. White's voice seemed to crack with emotion at times as he told me his friend, a 15-year veteran and a man destined for APD stardom, had died of a gunshot wound five months earlier.
        Lt. Todd Parkins was getting ready to go on a horseback hunting trip to the Pecos wilderness with some buddies. His truck was idling outside, his wife, Sue, was making him a sandwich and one of his young sons happened to be home sick that day watching dad as he packed up to go.
        Suddenly, one blast from a 60-year-old keepsake rifle sent six buckshot pellets tearing through Parkins' upper left chest and, much more devastating, through vital arteries that pumped blood to his heart and brain. In a short time this 38-year-old loving father, husband and known-prankster to his friends had literally bled out inside his own chest. Before he died he looked at his panicked wife and asked, "What happened? Please. Call."
        I started to express my sympathy, but White kept talking and through what seemed like clenched teeth told me, "The autopsy went to a newbie at the Office of the Medical Investigator, and her conclusion was suicide." The last word came out with a hiss — and an air of disbelief.
        White told me the Parkins family was completely distraught over the suicide finding, not just because it would reduce life insurance payouts but because it would leave a stain on an otherwise sterling reputation. And it would hang over the heads of Parkins' two young sons who would be left to wonder why Daddy didn't want to see them grow up.
        "There is no one who knew Todd who thinks suicide is even a remote possibility, Diane. Do you know any famous forensic guys who could re-do this autopsy? Do you know Dr. Michael Baden or someone like him?"
        I have made lots of contacts along this crime and justice path I've traveled since I first left Albuquerque to pursue my reporting career. I told White I knew Baden from my days at Court TV and promised to get in touch with him.
        Baden is one the most respected and well-known medical examiners in America. For 25 years he worked in the New York Medical Examiner's office. He's been involved as a forensic expert in gobs of high-profile cases like the JFK assassination and the murder trials of Marlon Brando's son, O.J. Simpson and Claus von Bulow. He performed autopsies on TWA Flight 800 victims. And Baden was there for the re-autopsy of Civil Rights Leader Medgar Evers and the re-examination of the kidnapped Lindberg baby case.
        I rustled up his e-mail address, and I quickly heard back: "Dear Diane, I would be pleased to review the autopsy report and police reports to see if I could possibly be of any help." Soon Sheriff White in Albuquerque and Dr. Baden in New York were connected by phone.
        Baden now has the autopsy file compiled in New Mexico at OMI by a young woman who, from the looks of her online photo, is in her 20s. The OMI Web site lists her as not yet graduated from the yearlong forensic fellowship program.
        Odd that someone so inexperienced would get the assignment to do such a high-profile autopsy. The sheriff says her conclusion that a police officer, with experience handling guns, would never accidently fire one is ludicrous. "People who handle guns get complacent all the time," he said. "It's an occupational hazard."
        Baden also has copies of all the police interviews and the gun inspection report and, perhaps most helpful, a high-tech 3-D computerized scan of the room in which Parkins was shot. With this Baden can recreate the scene and exactly measure how the gun Todd Parkins' grandfather bequeathed to him suddenly fired.
        When the chief of the OMI publicly admits he's not sure what caused the death of this APD veteran officer, I say the Parkins family deserves a second opinion. Dr. Baden, who took this case for free, may conclude it was suicide. But I doubt it.
        www.DianeDimond.net — e-mail Diane@DianeDimond.net